Saturday, February 25, 2012

Death Smiles at Murder (1973)

I'm not
really sure what's going in Death Smiles at Murder, but what I can figure out
it's a complex mess of reanimation and a romantic threesome. That's the short
version of the story and I think I'll keep it that way. Like the good Alex
Bakshaev once said (today on Facebook, that is), this is one of those movies
together with Fulci's City of the Living Dead where the narrative is forced to
step down to the superior visual extravaganza that unveils in front of your
eyes.

Death
Smiles at Murder is just something so pure as cinematic poetry. A macabre,
Poe-esque poem about love, death and reanimation. The story is very abstract,
almost in fragments and it's rarely that I can see how the story comes together
in a logical way. If you focus on the details you will miss the most important
part of this movie: the big picture. Yeah, it's in front of you the whole time
and to be able to fully appreciate this work of art you have to take a step
back and watch it from a distance. It's not until then you will understand it.

There's not
secret that Joe D'Amato, or Aristide Massaccesi, was an expert cinematographer.
He might have directed a lot of trash, some really lousy crap to, but most of
it looked like a million bucks. Death Smiles at Murder looks so good that I
can't even imagine why this movie isn't more popular. It's up there with the
best cinematography I EVER seen! This is combination with a very poetic and
beautiful story makes this something very special, a masterpiece. Maybe I'm
alone comparing it to Picnic at Hanging Rock - both regarding style and
visuals, but also the almost dreamlike fairy tale atmosphere.

As a pure
genre movie I guess is a frustrating experience for the causal ordinary German
gorehound with an Emo girlfriend. D'Amato uses his talent to film boobs more
than once, in very tasteful ways I should notice, and it's a violent movie with
some gory/bloody scenes - cheap effects, but works fine within the frameworks
of the rest of the story. There's reanimated dead people, but to call this a
zombie movie is going too far. Joe tries a little bit harder, and together with
Zeder this is probably the most unique living dead-movie made in Europe (I could include The Living Dead at the Manchester
Morgue there to).

It also
have a very fine cast with Ewa Aulin being excellent in the lead. Kinski has a
small part (and I'm sure he got a really good salary!) but makes his
performance edgy and intelligent. Even the traditional bore, Giacomo
Rossi-Stuart, is good enough to entertain me. Which might be the first time he
succeeded with that mission.

Death Smiles at Murder is up there with the best of
Jess Franco and Jean Rollin. I wonder what would have happen if D'Amato had
gone this route instead of the road he chose in the end? Well, we wouldn't have
enjoyed Anthropophagus, Absurd, Endgame, Beyond the Darkness and... eh, Porno
Holocaust. Not to forget the Ator-films!

Great review, as always! I've been meaning to see this for a long time and I really don't have a good reason for letting it collect dust on my dvdshelf all these years. After your review it might be the perfect time to watch it!